Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings - January 26, 2021

Here goes...another one of Bill Crawford's Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings!  

Men

1) UCLA

2) Arizona

3) USC

4) Oregon

5) Colorado

6) Stanford

7) Oregon State

8) Washington State

9) Utah

10) Arizona State

11) Washington

12) California

Women

1) UCLA

2) Stanford

3) Arizona

4) Oregon

5) Washington State

6) Arizona State

7) Colorado

8) Oregon State

9) USC

10) Utah

11) Washington

12) California

There you have it. Agree or disagree, it's the way I see it.

Bill Crawford is a long-time Eugene radio personality and freelance sportscaster. He has been true to his word and has not applied for the soon-to-be vacant Pac-12 Conference Commissioner position. You can, however, find him on the main social media platforms.

Job Opening

How you like to be a commissioner of a Power Five conference? The position is open as Larry Scott will be leaving his post as Pac-12 Commissioner on June 30th. 

GOOD LUCK!

Bill Crawford is a long time Eugene radio personality and sportscaster. He will NOT apply to be the next Pac-12 Commissioner, even though whoever gets the job will be a wealthy man or woman. You can find him on all major social media platforms.

Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings - January 19, 2021

Before you say "It's about time," here are this week's Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings:

Women

1) Arizona

2) Stanford

3) UCLA

4) Washington State

5) Oregon

6) Colorado

7) Arizona State

8) Oregon State

9) Utah

10) USC

11) Washington

12) California

Men 

1) UCLA

2) Oregon

3) Colorado

4) Arizona

5) Stanford

6) Oregon State

7) USC

8) Washington State

9) Utah

10) Arizona State

11) California

12) Washington

It's always interesting doing these rankings and you're going to disagree. Please agree on one thing, though. This isn't easy to do. Much of this is gut feeling. It's up to these teams to prove me wrong.

Bill Crawford is a long-time Eugene radio personality who just happens to broadcast sports. He's the play-by-play voice for the Eugene Overhead Door Challengers American Legion baseball team on KKNX and also for Henley High School football and post-season Klamath County high school sports for Wynne Broadcasting, a locally-owned six station group in Klamath Falls. You can find him on most major social media platforms.

The Urgency Of Everyday Life

 

By Harry Cummins

     In matters of final consequence, we seldom escape much in this life - not the least of which is ourselves.

     Like countless Americans during this past year of social unrest and pandemic, I have tried many things in an attempt to do just that. Looking far and wide for easy formulas for what's real and what's not, I have often missed the meaning of this masked and muffled 'aloneness' currently covering my face...and yours. 

     It is not easy to find sufficient seclusion to simply uncover clarity of thought.  We are surrounded by a loud world of suffering, injustice, disease and impermanence.  In the midst of all that, we are called to fully comprehend our own precious place in everyday life. There are so many distractions that conspire to derail us from that important task.  Covid has perhaps helped diminish a few of those distractions.

     Through my own litany of personal failures, I have concluded that without an inwardness amid the din, human thought and human nature seldom gravitate toward good daily habits, which taken together, equal the sum of our lives.  The events and circumstances of each day are, thru the filter of our right minds, the only means by which we hope to approximate authentic lives.

      In search of our own transformation, there does seem to be far too much missionary spirit afield these days, venturing into our neighbors, co-workers, even family members' brains.  Left brains, right brains, even comfortable middle of the road brains.  I am trying instead, to regard myself as a free-will agent and those around me as components of my destiny.  I need to be alone to know what I think..and I also need to be with others to understand who I am.  Thus is the paradoxical teeter-totter in the tilt toward self-discovery. Alone and together in tandem.

     We all need to believe not what we feel like believing, but what we come to believe through honest and hard examination.  Such scrutiny may point to a divine presence in both soil and flesh, sky and soul.  Trying to get at the truth of one's self, to find your own "true north", involves sorting thru an overwhelming array of conflicting messages. It can be terribly difficult to abandon society's traditional highways of ease for the unmarked roads of your own mind.

     In the end, it is all about taking yourself more seriously.  Not with some unrelenting, egotistical, humorless notion of importance, but with an urgent and sacred sense of responsibility toward every day and every life. 

     In the final chapter of her 1992 book Migrations To Solitude, we find the writer Sue Halpern alone in a rowboat with thoughts of her blind grandfather.  Halpern describes how, even when he couldn't see a thing, her grandfather would go to Yankee Stadium and sit with a transistor radio plugged into his ear, just to cheer.  Halpern also recalls when she was 6 years-old, holding a newspaper in front of her grandfather's face, then taking it away so he could see the light.

     What do you and I hold in front of our faces every day to block the light?

      What do we cheer for... when we cannot see?

      Questions marked 'urgent'.

hcummins@aol.com

photo: Monhegan Island, ME

The Roller-Coaster Ride of Vin Baker

 

By Harry Cummins

     Just a month after Sports Illustrated  ran a headline story calling Hartford center Vin Baker "America's Best-Kept Secret,"  and just a few months before Baker was picked 8th overall in the 1993 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, Baker and his roller coaster life pulled into the Chiles Center in Portland, Oregon for a Saturday night game with the Portland Pilots.

     Portland coach Larry Steele was no stranger at the time to imposing visiting players at the Chiles Center.  In prior years, the likes of LaPhonso Ellis, Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and Doug Christie had made impressive local appearances.  Yet, Steele was quoted  as saying of Baker, "I took one look at him warming up and was impressed before he even took off his warm-ups."

    For the record, Hartford beat the Pilots that night 97-84.  All of us who witnessed the game would easily remember the performance of Baker.  He scored 33 points that night, to go with 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and a Chiles Center record 7 blocked shots.  Hartford and Baker then completed their trip to Oregon two nights later when Baker dropped 40 points on the Ducks in Eugene.  He was not a secret to NBA scouts.

     Little did anyone suspect after those two games in Oregon, what a wild-ride would soon  await Vin Baker.

     After scoring 41 points in his very first NBA game, Baker fell victim to a hard life of drugs and alcohol that would send him careening thru the NBA as a member of many different teams while still able to win a Gold Medal in the 2000 Olympic Games, appear in 4 consecutive NBA All-Star games, and sign a 7-year, 86 million dollar contract with the Seattle Supersonics.

     By 2006, Baker was out of the NBA, his life in shambles.  His 2.3 million dollar home went into foreclosure and he suffered from liver damage caused by his drinking problem.  

    Years later, broke but still determined to pull himself out of his dark and still descending spiral, he contacted his former boss and owner of the Sonics, Howard Schultz.  What transpired next was straight from the pages of Aesop's Fables.

     In short order, Baker became a 6'11" barista making latte's and coffee drinks at a local Starbucks in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, hired by Schultz to become a store manager in training for one of the coffee impresario's many world-wide stores. In 2015-16, Baker would say "It was the best job I ever had." Thanks to Schultz and Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Baker was to find deeper happiness in an ordinary working life than all the glamour surrounding the NBA.

     Completing one of the best redemption stories in NBA history, Vin Baker has now returned to the NBA as an assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks, the team that drafted him some 25 years earlier.  

     Baker's story is about the preacher's son who turned pro, reaching the heights of fame and fortune, then falling all the way to rock-bottom.  But it is only part of the bigger story.  

     It's also the story of every human life that manages to hold onto God's grace along with their own humble spirit.  Maybe a little harder lesson to grasp when you were once America's Best-Kept Secret and steamrolling thru the state of Oregon on a 73 point week-end back in 1993. 

     

hcummins@aol.com

     

     

Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings - January 12, 2021

It's Tuesday. And you know what that means? No, it's the new Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings. Let the fun begin!

Men

1) Oregon

2) UCLA

3) Stanford

4) Colorado

5) USC

6) Arizona

7) Washington State

8) Oregon State

9) Utah

10) Arizona

11) California

12) Washington

Note: Now we'll have to see how long it'll be before Oregon's men will be able to resume its season. Meanwhile, as of this posting, Oregon State's men are back with its Pac-12 schedule this Thursday and Saturday night.

Women

1) Stanford

2) Washington State

3) Oregon

4) UCLA

5) Arizona

6) Arizona State

7) USC

8) Oregon State

9) Colorado

10) Utah

11) Washington

12) California

Note: Oregon State could've been ranked higher had it been playing more games. We'll see how the Beavers will recover from its COVID-19 issues once it starts playing again.

Bill Crawford is a long-time Eugene radio personality and sportscaster. Find him on many social media platforms.

With Yogi On Restoration Road

  By Harry Cummins

     A mere 24 hours after hooligans stormed the acropolis of American democracy, the Cleveland Baseball Club announced they have just traded Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco to the New York Mets.

     Clearly we have arrived at that proverbial fork in the fractured road delineated by Yogi Berra.  As for me, I am going with Yogi and taking that fork.  I plan to use it to consume a generous slice of humble pie, become as a child, and hope for greater understanding in the process of rebuilding.

     Restoration Road can feel like a bumpy frontage path right now, lit by foot-candles from a far away stadium light standard.

     Yet hope springs eternal. We have new players in position at the White House, but geez, 'who ya got at short', Cleveland?

Spring Fever! Meet the newest NY Met

hcummins@aol.com

To Err is....Divinely Human!

 By Harry Cummins

     It has been 46 years since the night shortstop Bobby Valentine booted a routine double play grounder in the ninth inning of a 4-2 California Angels win over the Boston Red Sox.  No ordinary error, it would minutes later launch Nolan Ryan into the American League record book and leave me with a dangling question for many decades hence.

     Let me set up for you one of the most dramatic record-breaking performances in MLB history.

     Ryan and the Angels would take on Boston that much anticipated August night in 1974. Both starting pitchers, Roger Moret of the Red Sox and Ryan had both lost no-hit bids in their previous starts.  Ryan was two outs away from his 3rd no-hitter just a week prior in Chicago.  Despite 13 strikeouts, he lost the no-hitter, then his shutout, and then the game.  The man who, a year earlier, had set the MLB record of 383 strikeouts in a single season, was on a mission this night.

     The first-place Red Sox entered the game with the 2nd highest batting average in the American League at the time (.271) and a 4 game lead in the A.L. East.  Ryan fanned 4 of the first 5 Boston hitters and racked up 9 strikeouts thru the first 4 innings.  Something special was happening.

     Thanks to a 3-run home run by Bob Oliver just inside the left-field foul pole in the 4th inning, the Angels cruised into the ninth and final frame with a 4-l lead. Ryan had registered 17 punch outs by then, striking out the side 3 times.

     Carl Yastremski lead off the ninth inning for Boston and drew a base on balls after falling into a 2 strike hole. Ryan again got 2 quick strikes on the next batter, Dwight Evans, before surrendering a single. Ryan then fanned Rick Miller to record his 18th strikeout, tying the American League record set in 1938 by Bob Feller. A youngster leaped from the stands and raced to the mound to shake Ryan's hand.

    Ryan gathered himself and faced Doug Griffin with thoughts of the blown game last week under eerily similar circumstances fresh in his memory. Griffin had 2 of the 6 hits surrendered by Ryan on the night.

     Once again Ryan put the hitter in a two strike deficit. Griffin hit the next pitch on the ground, straight at Angels shortstop Bobby Valentine.  All of us in Anaheim Stadium at that moment were in accord. Bobby Valentine would never have an easier chance in his life and would turn two to seal the win for California and their flame-throwing right- hand pitcher.  

     The downside of such a moment would mean that Nolan Ryan would not get his chance to tie the Major League record of 19 strikeouts in a 9 inning game set by Cy Young award winners -- the Mets' Tom Seaver and Philadelphia's Steve Carlton.

     However.....Valentine booted the the ball!  9,345 euphoric fans in attendance begin to think the same thing.  He did it on purpose. Valentine, of course denied such a suggestion in post game posturing.  If the error was intentional, it was also very courageous.  It was a miscue that could brand Valentine as a legendary goat unless Ryan could wiggle out of the resulting jam.  Personally, I was never so happy following an error on a major league field.

     Ryan then fanned pinch hitter Bernie Carbo for his 19th strikeout of the night.  A  woman ran from the stands to the mound, planting a kiss on the new MLB record holder while the stadium scoreboard flashed the magnitude of the moment. 

     With the game still hanging in the balance, Ryan faced Rick Burleson to try and nail down the final out with his 20th strikeout.  Ryan quickly racked up 2 strikes on Burleson, the only Red Sox to not strike out on this historic night. 

     With the entire stadium on their feet, Burleson lined out to right field on Nolan Ryan's 170th pitch of the night.   Ryan had thrown 115 strikes and 55 balls.  He walked only two Red Sox hitters.  Sixteen of his 19 strikeouts were swinging.  Only months earlier in 1974, Ryan had thrown a reported 235 pitches over 13 innings in an extra innings win over these same Red Sox. 

     "In those days," Ryan once told the Los Angeles Times, "I was my own closer."

    Today, Nolan Ryan is enshrined in the baseball Hall of Fame.  Bobby Valentine, the No. 5 overall pick in the 1968 MLB draft, went on to play for 3 more teams before managing the 2000 Mets to a World Series.  Ironically, he ended his turbulent managerial career in 2012 with the Boston Red Sox.  Today, he is the athletic director at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

     If I had to guess, I'd say this story just might bring back a sly smile to his face. 

     'Come on Bobby...you can tell me....'

hcummins@aol.com

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings - January 5, 2021

Here we go with this week's Pac-12 Men's and Women's Basketball Power Rankings.

Men

1) Oregon

2) Arizona

3) UCLA

4) Stanford

5) Washington State

6) USC

7) Arizona State

8) Colorado

9) Utah

10) Oregon State

11) California

12) Washington

Women

1) Stanford

2) UCLA

3) Oregon

4) Arizona

5) Washington State

6) Arizona State

7) Oregon State

8) Utah

9) Colorado

10) USC

11) Washington

12) California

Note: Oregon State's women's and men's basketball have paused its seasons due to COVID-19 issues within its programs. The Beavers men's games at Utah and Colorado have been postponed as are the women's games at California and Stanford (Santa Cruz) have been postponed. 

Bill Crawford is a long-time Eugene radio personality and freelance play-by-play announcer. You can find him on most social media platforms.